She paused, and her lips trembled. Then with a sudden desperate passion she went on:
“People say that I am good-looking, and my mirror tells me so; yet you, the man I love, can see in me no beauty that is attractive. To you I am simply a smart woman who is at the same time a princess—that is all.”
“I am no flatterer, Léonie,” I cried quickly. “But as regards personal beauty you are superb, incomparable. Remember what Vian said when he painted your portrait for the Salon—that you were the only woman he had ever painted whose features together made a perfect type of beauty.”
“Ah! you remember that!” she said, smiling with momentary satisfaction. “I thought you had forgotten it. I fear that my beauty is not what it was five years ago.”
“You are the same to-day as when we first met and were introduced. It was at Longchamps. Do you remember?”
“Remember? I recollect every incident of that day,” she answered. “You have been ever in my mind since.”
“As a friend, I hope.”
“No, as a lover.”
“Impossible,” I declared. “Do reason for an instant, Léonie. At this moment I am proud to count myself among your most intimate personal friends, but love between us would only result in disaster. If we married, the difference in our stations would be as irksome to you as to me; and if I did not love you, the link would only cause us both unhappiness, and, in a year or two, estrangement.”
“Only if you did not love me. If you loved me it would be different.”